I think the WB made a brilliant move in putting “Smallville” and “Angel” together on the same night this season, primarily because those are the only two shows on the WB that I watch. I’m glad they took my needs into account. The only problem is that I’ve also begun watching “The West Wing” again after a year and a half away from it, and it’s on opposite “Angel.” So two nights ago I watched the season premiere of “Angel” and taped “The West Wing” to watch afterwards. It’s just a wonderful night of TV joy.

I’m glad “Smallville” is on at 8:00 now. It’s more appropriate as an 8:00 show than a 9:00 show. The odd thing about Tuesday nights last year was switching the channel at 8:59 from UPN (“Buffy”) to the WB (“Smallville”), instead of the other way around. “Buffy,” which was on at 8, was really a 9 p.m. show, while “Smallville” was the opposite. But now everything’s in alignment and I don’t even have to change the channel. (Except that in a perfect universe we’d be in the eighth season of “Buffy” right now, and it would be better than season seven.)

I have to confess that although I’ve been watching “Smallville” almost since the beginning, I don’t think it’s a very good show. There’s just something… off about it. The acting sucks. And Lana and Chloe are annoying (even though I kind of like Chloe). And the show is too much “The Colbys” meets “Dawson’s Creek.” (Does anyone besides me remember “The Colbys”? I used to love that show, at least until Fallon disappeared in a UFO.) There’s too much melodrama and not enough humor — or depth, for that matter. But I’ll keep watching it anyway. It does look like Lex is finally turning into the insane villain we all know and love — and damn, I didn’t realize his body looked so good.

As for “Angel,” I thought the season premiere was delightful. It’s a brand-new show now. It looks like it’s going to be “L.A. Law” meets… well, “Angel,” I guess. I’m sure there are lots of Spike-haters who are incensed that James Marsters has leapfrogged over J. August Richards and Amy Acker in the opening credits to grab second billing for himself, but he must have a great agent. I was pleased to see the words “Written and Directed by Joss Whedon” at the beginning of the episode, and I was pleasantly surprised at the end to see that Joss has become executive producer. He’s gone from having three shows on the fall schedule last year to having just one this year, so I guess he has the time now. I’m glad.

I don’t know how I feel about Gunn’s brain being zapped with all that legal knowledge. Or perhaps I’m just resentful that I had to pay $50,000 to get what he got for free, and I’m not even very good at what I do. Anyway, being trained in the law doesn’t mean that you know facts — it just means that you know where to find the facts, and how to think about them. (That’s why it gets tiresome when people ask me for arcane bits of legal advice. I don’t know any more than you do, OK?)

It sucks that Cordelia, who has been a part of the Buffyverse since Day One, has been unceremoniously dumped. But it was a nice surprise to see Harmony again. And Jonathan Woodward (who plays Fred’s geeky scientist pal and also played the vampire/psychoanalyst in “Conversations With Dead People” on “Buffy” last year) is cute. More him.

I guess we’ll see how this goes.

Meanwhile, there’s “The West Wing.” I don’t really know if I’ll be able to watch three whole hours of TV every Wednesday night, but maybe. It was anticlimactic how the FBI found Zoe — I was expecting this story to go on for at least another two episodes. We still don’t know why Acting President Walken was having secret meetings with the Republican leadership in the Oval Office, but maybe we’ll find out.

Wow. I guess summer’s really over when I’m blogging about TV again.